1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cooktop with a glass ceramic panel covering burners that is provided with burner selector indicia and power selection indicia associated with switches that provide input to a processor controlling actuating and deactuating of the burners.
2. Background Art
Cooktops with ceramic glass panels have been developed in order to provide a smooth, easily cleaned surface that prevents spills from reaching the burners or the interior of the appliance. Of course, the controls must be readily accessible to a cooktop user. The use of traditional controls such as knobs, dials and the like can increase difficulty of cleaning the appliance and the difficulty of preventing spills from reaching the interior of the appliance.
A previously known improvement to operate the electronic control of the cooktop has been to use remote handheld units having switches such as numeric keypads and the like for selecting power levels of a burner and selection of the burners to be actuated. However, such devices require transmitters and receivers, a particular alignment between the handheld unit and the embedded controller, and power to operate the remote unit as well as the embedded control. As a result, the units are complicated and expensive, and the keypads of the controller may be subject to the same difficulty of cleaning as previously known appliance mounted controls, particularly when the handheld unit is rested on the appliance.
Another known cooking apparatus such as the microwave oven shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,097,016 provides screens which can be bookmarked and retrieved as desired. In addition, a switching display can include overlaid film and layers that together form switch members for actuating displays in response to images on the screen. Nevertheless, power selection is through a typical numerical keyboard separate from the heating source selector indicia, and the selector indicia and the power selection indicia do not include interactive displays for the other selector.
Other cooktops with glass or glass ceramic cooking surfaces and multiple cooking zones may include recesses in the glass ceramic panel. The recesses form operational zones, preferably formed by glass or glass ceramic parts embedded in the cooking surface by means of a temperature stable sealing connection such as a silicone layer. The cooking surface exhibits rigid operational zones for display, and flexible mount zones for weighing and operating switch elements.
In another glass ceramic plate covering a heating element, the control element includes relief in the form of a bump or recess in the top surface that provides tactile identification of control elements. Preferably, a plurality of relief elements correspond to the power levels and the different relief elements include different tactile characteristics to represent the different power levels. However, inadvertent actuation with manipulation of one of the indicia may accidentally increase power levels or initiate burner actuation and result in unexpected consequences by the heating control.